Materiality, Devotion and Compromise: A Study of Goddess Films of South India

Abstract

If religions can be considered as “devotional houses,” then engaging with their materiality becomes an important way of understanding how people inhabit these houses and live their lives inside them. This is particularly pertinent to Hinduism since the different material cultures that the Hindus have constructed over millennia have helped to keep their belief systems alive. One such contemporary mediation is through films that are seen as disseminating (often distorting) ancient beliefs to modern audiences. It is from this angle that I analyze the goddess films, a fairly popular sub-genre in India, under the category of mythological films. The goddess films are traditionally thought to present the glory and power of the Hindu goddess as divine mother, savior and protector. I will argue that the experience of watching the goddess on screen re-enacts Hindu notions of darśana and hence contributes to the Hindu practice of accessing the “intangible” through material means.